JTB_5
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- Oct 6, 2017
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This is a brief review of the Brother 1510.
As you can see it is a zulu spear blade, VG10 steel, with green micarta (a little brighter than Olive Drab, but pretty close) handles and satin finish on the blade, bolsters, and bar shield. There is a lanyard hole on this one as well.
In this video (pardon the sound, I was roasting coffee at the time) the walk and talk is very good on this knife. It has that nice "bounce" at the half-stop when closing, and everything in the action is very crisp. The fit and finish is impressive for this price range. There is a small gap between the bolster and cover on the show side, and the secondary grind is just slightly uneven on the pile side. Otherwise the transitions are very smooth, the pins are flush, and there are no burrs on the lanyard hole or liners to snag the fingers. The knife was hair shaving sharp when I received it. Initially I saw some small gaps inbetween the the liners and the backspring, but upon further inspection I believe these gaps are due to the washers that the blade is riding on. It is hard to see, but they look to be phosphor bronze rather than ceramic. There is also a stop pin in the blade well. The pull is a solid 5 to half stop and then about a 6 from half stop to opening. The half stop is a little bit lower than I've seen on most traditional knives, meaning that the blade hangs below perpendicular at the stop. You could cut your finger if you had it up too close to the pivot and closed the knife to half stop.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything about the company, which seems to go by the full name of "Watchman Brother," which sounds really weird and kind of creepy if you think about it too much. It is manufactured in China and with the precision it makes me think they have CNC machines or some other equivalent automated system. I hate to say it, but having just bought a recent Case knife released this year (Copperhead), I'm more impressed with the quality of this Brother 1510.
I hope you folks enjoyed the review!
Edit: I was able to find some information about Brother and this knife in particular. Apparently the washers are copper, and the bolsters, spring, and pins are "steel." They do use CNC machines for some of the manufacturing and the two owners have been making knives since 2008 (the company came into its own in 2013). Here's a blurb they have about themselves:
"The brand BROTHER was named by our two founders, they are classmates, mechanical design and manufacturing major, friends, brothers, have the same passion on knives, the same dream to do create good things with spirit of craftsman. They start to design and make knives since 2008, over 10years experience, they had good sense of knives and now we have a professional design team and our own factory. We are committed to combining the traditional craft and modern technology to make better knife."
As you can see it is a zulu spear blade, VG10 steel, with green micarta (a little brighter than Olive Drab, but pretty close) handles and satin finish on the blade, bolsters, and bar shield. There is a lanyard hole on this one as well.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything about the company, which seems to go by the full name of "Watchman Brother," which sounds really weird and kind of creepy if you think about it too much. It is manufactured in China and with the precision it makes me think they have CNC machines or some other equivalent automated system. I hate to say it, but having just bought a recent Case knife released this year (Copperhead), I'm more impressed with the quality of this Brother 1510.
I hope you folks enjoyed the review!
Edit: I was able to find some information about Brother and this knife in particular. Apparently the washers are copper, and the bolsters, spring, and pins are "steel." They do use CNC machines for some of the manufacturing and the two owners have been making knives since 2008 (the company came into its own in 2013). Here's a blurb they have about themselves:
"The brand BROTHER was named by our two founders, they are classmates, mechanical design and manufacturing major, friends, brothers, have the same passion on knives, the same dream to do create good things with spirit of craftsman. They start to design and make knives since 2008, over 10years experience, they had good sense of knives and now we have a professional design team and our own factory. We are committed to combining the traditional craft and modern technology to make better knife."
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They seem to make some nice stuff.
